Thursday, January 31, 2019

Meet Agent Nova Forrester. She's a Stabber pilot on a journey. And hers is a true hero's journey.

Nova's alt belongs to The Knights of the Order, a member of the mighty CODE. alliance. In order to achieve full rank, members of this corporation must perform certain tasks. One of them is based on a provision of the Code:

Test of Fortitude. Walk a mile in the Supreme Protector's shoes by becoming a miner-bumper. You must continue to bump miners for an indefinite period of time.

The Test of Fortitude is not often invoked, but it's in the Code, so obviously it's still important. The Knights of the Order corp challenges its members to spend three consecutive hours bumping miners and report back on what they've learned.

Nova made a pilgrimage to the historic Kamio system. Since its ice anomaly had not respawned, she checked the system's asteroid belts. There she found miners who needed bumping.

As is usually the case, miners who got bumped started to run away and dock up: Where bumpers go, gankers are likely to follow. But that didn't stop the miners from running their mouths in local chat.

Nova intuited a sense of disquiet in panda Tissant. When Nova name-dropped the Saviour of Highsec, the truth came to the surface.

panda was a troubled miner. Agent Nova supplied panda with some basic information about EVE as she looked for miners in the other asteroid belts.

Not all miners docked up after being bumped. Some floated in space, far from the asteroids. They were AFK.

The AFK miners and bots were dead to the world. They disgraced themselves and highsec, but at least they no longer gathered ore.

panda vented her frustration at being unable to mine in Kamio. Just when it seemed that panda was the only miner at her keyboard, Nova received a convo request:

Masters Patrouette feigned ignorance--or perhaps he was completely oblivious to the world around him. Regardless, he could claim ignorance no more.

How do you handle a miner like Masters Patrouette? You tell him the truth. Then it's up to him to do the right thing.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Previously, on MinerBumping... Upon witnessing a righteous gank in the historic Kino system, miner Surri Ren made a startling announcement: Ganking violates the EULA! As Agent Minx Mattel moved to combat this heresy, another confused miner, Corbin Seaton, came to Surri's defense.

Corbin reviewed Agent Minx's killboard and was disgusted by the sight of our Agent's rookie ship losses. Just as Minx was about to explain how gankers use rookie ships to draw CONCORD between ganks, Corbin fired off another complaint.

Corbin and Surri became a coordinated tag-team. They were drawn to each other by their mutual hatred of the Code.

Minx could see that the two rebel miners brought out the worst in each other. They needed to be separated.

While Minx had been offering counseling to the confused miners of Kino, her fellow Agents located and destroyed another target:

The Gila ganked in a nearby system was worth nearly a billion isk. For all their words, Corbin and Surri utterly failed to prevent the gank. Which, in fairness, made them about as effective as the entire Anti-Ganking "community" on any given day.

Once again, the miners were unable to take any joy in the successful attack on a fellow carebear. It was as if they hated fun.

Corbin's anger only grew. He was spiraling out of control. Minx wanted to save him and sell him a permit. Her best hope was to figure out what was causing the miner's rage.

This, Minx realized, must be a major contributing factor to Corbin's dysfunction.

The miner was still in denial. He pretended that the humiliating gank didn't bother him. But it did. Why else would he lash out at every ganker he saw?

Our Agent understood that the miner needed time. For now, it was enough that Corbin was docked up in fear of the mighty CODE. alliance. Minx left Kino to rejoin her gank fleet. Many more carebears needed her help--and they would get it.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

A member of Purifying Light corp encountered the true purifying light of highsec when a group of Agents ganked her Covetor. This was a cause for celebration--but not everyone was in the mood to party.

Kino should be a happy place; it was one of the very first systems to taste the sweet fruits of the Code. Yet some miners in Kino were quite clearly miserable.

Surri Ren told her fellow miners that ganking in highsec was a violation of several provisions of the EULA. Worryingly, if the miners were at their keyboards, some of them might read local chat and be deceived into believing it.

Someone had to stand up and speak the truth. On this day, it was Agent Minx Mattel.

Minx was one of the gankers who had killed the Covetor. As her fleetmates went in search of another target, Minx stayed behind in Kino to fight the good fight--to educate the ignorant masses.

Space lawyer Surri was joined by Corbin Seaton, another miner. In keeping with internet custom, he brought up the burning of the White House in the War of 1812 at the first mention of Canada. A reference to Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons couldn't be far off.

Agent Minx aimed to inject some common sense into the conversation. Ganking is allowed in EVE and always has been. Those were the facts.

Surri didn't directly deny the fact that ganking was legal; perhaps the space lawyer sensed she was on shaky ground. As she stood down, Corbin suggested a change in tactics.

Surri dismissed the New Order's unparalleled accomplishments. Now, AFK mining for years on end--that would be revolutionary.

Corbin seethed. The very sight of a killmail was enough to make him angry. But why?

Corbin belonged to a corp with ambition. Naturally, the corp didn't actually pursue any of those ambitions. It planned to do stuff, at some undetermined point in the future. Kind of like how someone will come along and stop the Code "eventually".

Though one source of Corbin's frustration was obvious, Minx still couldn't understand what was bothering these miners so much. She set a new goal for herself: Diagnose the root of the miners' problems and figure out a way to sell them mining permits. Their very future in EVE was at stake.

Monday, January 28, 2019

Previously, on MinerBumping... We engaged in an enlightening examination of one facet of carebear hypocrisy: Their desire to hold Agents accountable to the Code while denying the Code exists.

We know the Code exists; it's as real as anything in EVE can be. Indeed, it has a bigger impact on more EVE players than any other aspect of the game. Even the most rebellious carebears, on some level, accept this fact. We know, too, that carebears have many responsibilities under the Code. What about Agents?

Rebels and skeptics often bemoan the "unfairness" of the Code: Agents get all the benefits and miners bear all the burdens. (If they really believed that, though, then why are they mining instead of enforcing the Code?) As evidence, the rebels point to the following provision of the Code as an example:

Keep local clean. Miners should be courteous in local and should refrain from the use of profanity.

The carebear whines, "Why should only miners be barred from using profanity in local? Why shouldn't gankers be required to follow rules on what they can and can't say?"

The carebear is, as always, disingenuous. He has no concern for the quality of local chat. If he did, we wouldn't have so many issues with foul-mouthed carebears spewing their toxicity all over highsec. Unlicensed miners are known for using racial slurs, death threats, and committing other bannable acts--in local chat, private convos, EVEmails, you name it.

The miner's complaint about a lack of restrictions on Agents' speech is also an example of deflection--a common tool of the bot-aspirant carebear. Gank a bot-aspirant, and he'll tell you to "go after the bots, and leave us real people alone." Shoot a new (or not-so-new) player, and he'll demand you gank an experienced one instead. Pop an autopiloter in highsec, he'll tell you to go fight in lowsec. On and on it goes. Even if you take their advice--gank a confirmed botter, for example--they'll whine that you should be in nullsec where the real botting goes on. Or they'll tell you to let CCP handle it instead.

In other words, every time a good, honest man does something good and honest, a carebear will tell him to do something else, somewhere else. If we listened to carebears, we wouldn't be able to take any action to fix a problem, because the carebear would deflect our good efforts in some other direction. Highsec could never be saved like that. This is one of the countless reasons why I often say it's better to shoot a carebear than talk to him.

The best response to a deflection attempt: focus. The New Order of Highsec focuses on saving highsec. That's it. First we will eradicate bot-aspirancy by achieving 100% Code-compliance in highsec. Only after we have total, final victory do we need to worry about what comes next. Our Agents have total focus and clarity of purpose.

Does that sound extreme? It shouldn't. Take, for example, the problem of a house on fire. While the fire rages, firefighters are absolutely focused on saving lives and extinguishing the fire. Meanwhile, the Anti-Gankers would be complaining about how the fire truck is blocking part of the road, water is dripping out of the fire hydrant, and firefighters are tracking dirt into the burning house. The carebear whines, "Stop putting out that fire. There are worse fires in some other country. Go over there."

The problem of bot-aspirancy threatens to consume highsec. Fear not--our brave Agents are on the job!

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Let's look at some criminals who were brought to justice during the week of January 20th @ 00:00 EVEtime through January 26th @ 23:59 EVEtime. (By the way, you don't need to buy Police skins to enforce the law in highsec. All you need is the Code.)

Michell Mason was anxious about bringing her cargo through the Uedama system. To avoid the fate of her fellow Code offenders--who lose freighters all the time--she chose to autopilot a smaller hauler. It didn't matter, though, because she lacked a permit. Agents Alarik Maleus, Zont Shooter, Nam Plau, kali laska, Pazzesqo, May Mather, JIuc Dark, and Votre Dieu cracked open the Mastodon and saw this:

Silly carebear.

Ralena decided to use a mining battleship--and that wasn't even the dumbest thing she did that day. After Agent Mike Adoulin removed her MTU, she attacked his battleship with some drones. Unlike Ralena's battleship, Mike's was equipped with blasters instead of mining lasers.

For some reason, mrpleco brought a 2.1 billion isk Vargur into an asteroid belt. Noble warriors from Honeybright corporation ganked the Vargur, allowing Agent Eostella to sink her teeth into an even juicier kill.

Three billion isk may seem like a lot of money to waste on implants, but let's be honest--mrpleco's entire EVE career has been a waste.

Saturday, January 26, 2019

You know, it's funny. When the rebels and skeptics offer their opinions about the Code, the same two complaints pop up time and again. First, they argue that the Code does not exist: "It's not a real thing," they say. "It's not in the EULA. It's nonsense. Nobody needs to follow your fake Code."

The second complaint: "You're not following your own CODE!"

Nobody ever accused the rebels of being consistent.

Despite their supposed disbelief in the Code, miners often whine about Agents not following it. It became a common refrain so early on that it earned a spot on the Miner Bingo board. To this day, I frequently get EVEmails from miners and other carebears who complain that an Agent violated the Code by ganking them. (I'm still waiting for one of these complaints to actually hold up under scrutiny.)

It goes further. The anti-Code crowd accuses Agents not only of disobeying the Code, but of disobeying phantom provisions that aren't even in the Code! "The Code doesn't exist, but you need to stop breaking these rules that aren't in it."

Nobody ever accused the rebels of being logical.

The common thread is that carebears think our Agents should be held to a higher standard--by a set of rules that they say should be ignored. The bot-aspirant miner sneers, "I print out your Code and use it for toilet paper." Which is quickly followed by, "Hey! Weren't you supposed to check to see if I was AFK first?!"

How can we resolve this apparent discrepancy?

Well, for one thing, carebears are hypocrites. For whatever reason, grinding isk through PvE in highsec tends to bring out the worst in people. Even by their own standards, the miners are thoroughly loathsome. They lie constantly--and then complain about scammers. They call their opponents griefers and bullies--and then write EVEmails with racist death threats. They accuse others of cheating and breaking the EULA--and then download macro-mining programs. They wring their hands over the fate of new players--and then abuse and exploit them in terrible corporations with confiscatory taxes and ore buyback programs.

Carebears are a selfish and greedy lot. No matter what the situation, they want to have it both ways. They crave 100% safety in highsec, of course; they see a moral dimension to it. "You're a sociopath if you shoot my internet spaceship in a spaceship combat game. And you're the scum of the earth if you manage to get my pod, too."

On the other hand, the carebear craves revenge. He would not hesitate to shoot at a spaceship that belonged to someone who ganked him--if the opportunity presented itself. Granted, they would find some way to muck it up, since carebears are exceptionally bad at PvP (despite spending years in this, a PvP game). Regardless, the moral dimension mysteriously vanishes once the carebear finds himself on the other side of the guns.

There's another reason for the carebear's inconsistency, though: On some level, they know the code is real. They can feel it. The evidence is all around them. They see the powerful Code enforcers imposing their will upon highsec, and they see the Code violators (including themselves) being punished.

The same goes for real-life criminals. They break the law, but they believe in it, too. A serial killer or a child abuser still expects the other drivers on the road to obey traffic laws. So it's only natural that even the Code-violating carebears should want to enjoy the protections of the Code--whatever those may be.

Having exposed the moral, intellectual, and philosophical bankruptcy of the carebear, a question nevertheless presents itself: What are an Agent's duties under the Code?

Friday, January 25, 2019

Carebears, anyone in the New Order will tell you that it's vitally important to buy a mining permit and obey the Code. But the rebels and skeptics out there claim the opposite. Anti-Gankers swear up and down that you're better off if you disobey the Code.

So how do we know who's telling the truth? Let's look at a case study--the life of someone who chose the path of the anti-Code rebel.

Gunnar Armer signed up for EVE a long time ago, but he's never enjoyed it. He's a miner and a hauler. He started "playing" in 2011. The Anti-Gankers would call him a new player.

Calm Down Freighter > hiCalm Down Freighter > ransom is 1bCalm Down Freighter > pay or dieGunnar Armer > i have to log in other toon to get it

Gunnar chose to rebel against the Code. He never bought a permit. Instead, he autopiloted his Orca into the Niarja system, where it was bump-tackled by a member of Cohenberg's Ethical Hauling.

When Gunnar returned to his keyboard, he found himself in a terrible situation. This never would have happened if he had complied with the Code. Alas, his disobedience cost him a billion isk. So much more expensive than a mining permit.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

There's no bad time or bad reason to buy New Order shares--and there's a seemingly infinite number of good ones.

Making amends for yourself? Making amends for someone else? Buy shares. It'll do you good. It'll do highsec good, too.

Another solid reason to increase one's holdings of New Order stock. Turd Ferg'Son joined the 20 billion club with his purchase of 5,000 extra shares this month. Turd's aesthetically-inspired purchase took us past the 1,702, 1,703, 1,704, 1,705, and 1,706 billion isk marks and earned him a Quintuple Supreme Protector's Tip of the Hat™.

Kegan Bjornson also gave his holdings a significant upgrade, purchasing 3,750 additional shares. This brought us to the 1,707, 1,708, 1,709, and 1,710 billion isk marks and earned Kegan a Quadruple Supreme Protector's Tip of the Hat™.

More isk, more Catalysts, more dead carebears.

BONUS!

In case you didn't notice--but you did--Agent Medar Uith's final banner has been revealed! In previous posts, we looked at the other MinerBumping banners contributed over the years. In case you want a refresher, check out banners #1-6 and banner #7. Then enjoy banner #8.

Frankly, the existence of this banner is yet another failure for Anti-Ganking, which has never produced any good art. It's an exciting time to be a member of the New Order--and a reader of MinerBumping, EVE's finest blog.